Conan O'Brien Must Go

Long time Conan fan here. Religious podcast listener and have watched tons of clips of him on YouTube. Watched basically all his remotes and loved them all.

I believe like myself, many people have anticipated Conan O'Brien Must Go ever since the TBS nightly show went off the air. Well, the new show definitely has the old Conan recipe: traveling, interacting with locals, funny improvs, etc etc. Definitely worth watching.

But I really believe that this format still has a lot of potential. A lot of things that I miss about the old travel shows are unfortunately absent. Real laugh track from a live audience (definitely a conscious decision from the production team), not too much multi-cam setup and fancy editing (which makes the new show feel a bit contrived), and just more organic interactions (either with locals or someone on the team like Sona or Jordan). Like some comments said, I feel the new show is trying too hard in some sense, making the jokes feel contrived. I don't think there are a lot of clips that I will be watching over and over again like those from Conan's travels in Armenia, Japan, Isreal, Australia, etc. I believe that Conan really shines when there isn't a lot of budget, post-production, planning, and scripting. Maybe the expectation from HBO and even himself is too high, but I think it surprisingly hurts the show. Let him take it easy and relax, and actually enjoy the travel and bantering with whoever is on the show with him. It really doesn't need to be "polished" to be a good and funny show.

Nevertheless, I would recommend everyone to watch it still. I'm just having high hopes for the next season.

As others have mentioned, some portions felt like they went on too long. Were they trying to pad the episode to meet the length requirement? Or was it a conscious decision in order to make things seem awkward? Well, either way, it didn't always quite come out right in my opinion.

Beyond that, no argument from me that some stuff was funny and seeing various locations and meeting people is interesting. You can tell some of the fans didn't work out so well as their screen time was cut drastically. Which I suppose is bound to happen.

In some portions the only plan seems to be to try to offend people or be outlandish, but Conan is a seasoned comedian and shouldn't have to always do that in order to make humor. So that seemed like the biggest negative. But comedy is subjective and can be difficult, so it's also understandable.

Conan O'Brien once described the gasoline for his comedic engine as the relentless pursuit of the strange phantom intersection between smart and stupid. In this new series, Conan puts HBO Max's money, or is it just Max now? Who the heck knows? Point is Conan puts someone's money to good use while bringing us a hearty dose of bottled throttled mad genius. As the great philosopher William Q. Wonka once opined, "Conan is the music maker. Conan is the dreamer of dreams."

As a long time O'Brien-o-phile (podcast host, late night host, and . . . Well . . . I guess that's about it) and fellow inbred melanin deficient Irishman, it's no surprise that I loved Conan O'Brien Must Go. Even if you're not, and even if somehow you've been living in a cave and have never heard of Conan, watch the show. His brilliant stupidity and stupid brilliance will win you over. And who knows? Maybe your next houseguest (cave guest?) will be the Red Tornado himself.

One gripe: There was talk of gerbils, but I didn't see any. What gives?

I really enjoyed Conan Without Borders and watched some of them multiple times.

This time in a lot of bits it just doesn't work for me (but not all of them). Conan just doesn't vibe with some of his fans and other people, while usually he makes either them or us laugh in such situation this time interaction feels kinda forced. Sometimes he interrupts people or makes them feel visibly uncomfortable to push some joke which doesn't seem really worth it to me.

As far as travelling goes, there was barely anything new to learn about each country, I think Conan could find more less obviously tourist places, things closer to common folks, like he used to.

There's only one hillarious episode, and you know which one (or who is in it).

I'm just gonna cut to the chase here without any detailed spoilers. Overall I think it's a bit of a 'cheap' concept for a travel show. A lot of scenes felt wayyyy too long, others too short. When someone has an interesting story, Conan tries too hard to make a joke. You're traveling to interesting places, Conan! Let us hear people's stories also! You did so magnificently in the past, and knew when to joke/not joke. He's overstepping his shtick here sometimes (in my opinion), and that's a shame.

I'm still giving it a 7, because when it wasn't so forced, it was absolutely HILARIOUS. The imagery was also breathtaking.

Enjoy it for what it is, but don't expect a masterpiece. Maybe season 2 will be better! I really hope so.